What is your Star Wars hot take?
What is your Star Wars hot take?
Mine is they shouldn't have made the sequel series without George as a consultant.
Mine is they shouldn't have made the sequel series without
George as a consultanta planMy hot take on the sequels is that the first one was a decent start, and they screwed up the whole plot from there. It had some issues mainly in dropping subplots, probably because what was intended to be followed up wasn't thanks to different plots and directors.
It really did seem like they were just making stuff up as they went 😂
That's not a hot take at all.
And plan = "Thrawn Trilogy".
Or Rogue Squadron. Or hell, basically anything from the extended lore that isn't about the Vong or the corellia trilogy.
They couldn't, they already established that Space Whales hard counter Thrawn.
Beat me to it.
Honestly, saw the first one, and that was enough to not see the rest.
It's the stereotypical "tell the rest of the story" lame crap today.
You want a HOT take on Star Wars?
I love it. All of it. Games, movies, shows. All. Of. It. Sure, I've got some critiques, but even the prequels/sequels are a thrill ride. I love Star Wars and I don't care about some dork on the internet's opinion on it.
This is the only hot take in this whole thread lol
My lukewarm take is that Star Wars has varied so greatly in quality from product-to-product, that any take that categorizes some of it as bad and some of it as good is a lukewarm, standard take.
Yes, most of these are standard takes.
A true hot take, one that I don’t share but take my upvote for your candor
Ah, the negotiator!
At this point, Star Wars is just a setting. The reason Star Wars shows/movies continue to be so divisive is because people expect the tone/genre of their favorite piece of Star Wars content.
For example, expecting to like Acolyte because you liked Rogue One is ridiculous. They have almost nothing in common. You wouldn’t expect to like Dr Strange because you liked Dunkirk.
Just because it has a Star Wars brand on it doesn’t mean it will be anything like other things with the Star Wars brand. Expecting that will lead to disappointment.
Just because it has a Star Wars brand on it doesn’t mean it will be anything like other things with the Star Wars brand.
I'm sorry, that's insane.
The original trilogy was awesome because George Lucas did not have full creative control. The editors (Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew) prevented a new hope from being a complete dumpster fire. The prequels had too much George Lucas, and the sequels had too much ... I dunno? Decisions by managers or something?
Anyway it seems The Mandalorian was awesome because it was a passion project by true OT fans. The franchise needs to wait for that type of project instead of just green lighting half hearted crap by folks trying to extract value out of star wars.
Great take but the Mandalorian was trash
I know it's not a hot take but I'll rant.
who the hell had to make Rey a Palpatine and Palpatine not die. that wasn't epic, that was dumb af.
Darth jar jar would have been wayyy more compelling, funny, etc.
sometimes dead is bettah.
they could have gone a different route with snoke. he was the only compelling new guy and they made him the old guy. bahhh
I think they fucked up by wanting to give every movie to different directors, so in the second one the new director killed off Snoke. Then JJ Abrams somehow returned and probably had a story that required Snoke, but he was dead, so now Palpatine needs to be back.
Could have just made Snoke be the guy cloning himself instead of Palpatine. 🤷 It would have made just as much sense.
Hot take? Obi-Wan doesn't need to be on the high ground, the high ground just needs to exist within the battle;
Obi-Wan knows that when he has the low ground, he really has the high ground, from a certain point of view; see Diagram A.
Look at his battle record:
Maul: Has low ground, wins Example A
Dooku: No high ground, loses
Dooku rematch: No high ground, loses Example B.
Greivous: Has low ground, wins Example C
Vader: Has high ground, wins
Vader rematch: No high ground, loses
Obi-Wan with the high/low ground is canonically the most powerful Jedi. This is fact. Had Yoda not denied his request to battle The Senate with typical Jedi arrogance, Obi-Wan could have defeated Palpatine in the Senate building, which housed a variety of different altitudes; this was designed so that the Chancellor could always have the moral high ground in political debates. But Obi-wan didn't fight The Senate, and Yoda soon learned that you can't cleave the Sheev in a normal 1v1. It took the Tusken Raiders years of conflict against Old Ben Kenobi to grasp his superiority in terrain advantage, as you see them visibly flee in ANH when they realize he holds the low (inverse-high) ground; this was the optimal strategy against a near-invincible opponent.
Yoda is shorter than virtually every other fighter, which gives him a permanent low-ground disadvantage; however, his saber-fighting style utilizes a flipping-heavy technique in order to negate this weakness for a temporary window. You'll notice that, after falling from the central podium in The Senate's building, he immediately retreats upon realizing he is on the lowest ground. You'll also notice that, while training Luke, he rides on him like a mount, to gain the intellectual high ground and accelerate Luke's training. Example D . Obi-Wan's defensive Form III lightsaber style synergizes with his careful military maneuvers; as he only strikes when prepared, he can always hold the strategic high ground. (The business on Cato Neimodia doesn't count.) You'll come to realize that this is why Commander Cody's artillery strike failed against Obi-Wan, when hundreds of Jedi were killed in similar attacks. Cody failed to grasp the strategic situation, as the Jedi Master's elevation was superior to his by hundreds of meters, making him virtually unkillable. (You'll notice that all the Jedi killed in Order 66 were on level ground with the clones, thereby assuring their demise.) Had Cody taken his time and engaged the Jedi on even terrain, he would have succeeded. Obi-Wan subsequently retreated under the surface of the lake, so that he could maintain the topographical low/high ground. This is why Obi-Wan is so willing to fight against impossible odds to the point where he thrusts himself in immediate danger; when your probability of victory is 1-to-10, you have the statistical (and therefore strategic) low ground, a numerical advantage when you use your point of view to flip the value to 10/1 . Almost losing is, in Obi-Wan's case, certain victory. (See Example E). In ANH, Vader proves his newfound mastery by engaging Obi on perfectly even ground. However, Obi-Wan intentionally sacrifices himself on the Death Star, so that he could train Luke from a higher plane of existence, thereby giving him the metaphysical high ground Example G.
Why was Vader so invested in the construction and maintenance of the Death Star? Because he knows Obi-wan can't have the high ground if there's no ground left. Image A. As seen through the events of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan was known to be on friendly terms with Senator Organa, whose homeworld held large quantities of mountainous terrain, the perfect habitat for a Jedi Master. Grand Moff Tarkin was already in position to destroy Alderaan as a first target, as the distance from Scarif to Alderaan was too vast to reach between the escape and recapture of the Tantive IV, even at 1.0 lightspeed. Alderaan had been the initial target all along, as Obi-Wan with the high ground was the primary threat to the Death Star. How? Because a moon-sized space station would have some form of gravitational pull, thereby negating Obi-Wan's zero-gravity weakness; Obi-Wan with the perpetual high-ground in a low-orbit starfighter would easily be able to fire proton torpedoes through a ventilation shaft, although the Empire was uncertain of the specific weakness of the Death Star planted by Galen Erso (who was a good friend).
A common misconception is the idea of a 'prostrate position' version of the high ground, wherein Obi-Wan lies flat on his back, giving him tactical superiority from his point of view. However, this strategy is futile, as for the high ground to come into effect, there must be a differential between parties on both the x-axis and y-axis to a moderately significant variation from both absolutes (Angles only a Sith would deal in). For Obi-Wan's high ground powers to be in full effect, he must stand between 15 and 75 degrees (π/12 to 5π/12 radians) diagonal from his opponent(s) on any quadrant of the area circle; this has been dubbed the Trigonometric Perspective Diagram. (Diagram B). The total effect for conventional high ground advantage can be calculated via the MetaComm Equation, or f(x) = lim 0→x π/12 | 7π/12 5π/12 | 11π/12 Ʃ(x) (2tan(x) / 3sin(x) + (log10Δ)) * Φ
'x' refers to the angle of contact between the two parties on, with advantage being based purely on position on the Y-axis, as the vast majrity of force users base their perception on elevation rather than spacial relativity. Δ refers to distance (measured in meters) between units on the hypotenuse; distance has some effect in tactical advantage during typical skirmishes, but accurate values for Δ based on equipped weapon are not finalized. The power of gravitational force has great effect on the high ground; too weak, and the high ground holds no traction; too strong and the ground becomes the real enemy. Experimentation has proven that the high ground typically holds significant value between .8 and 1.4 β (Earth Gravity) with maximum impact standing roughly equal to 1.05. Pressure is equally important, as it is a surrounding force attached to gravity (the high ground has famously low impact in aquatic environments). Pressure(λ) is measured in pounds per square inch (psi), to be used as a gavity multiplier (or division if pressure is sub-atmospheric; a pressure of 0 would theoretically negate the high ground, due to the high ground not existing without gravity. This is merely speculation, however, as the gravity value still exists, thereby defining the high and low grounds). Φ (Surrounding Force) is a variable defined as β * 2.2λ , with no metric value assigned due to its singular application in the MetaComm equations.
In situations regarding Obi-Wan and his relativistic point of view, you must substitute the Quadrilateral MetaComm Equation (the Jedi Master function), f(x) = lim 0→x minmaxƩ (2tan(x) / 3sin(x) ) * (1.2)Φ [min = (|cos(x)| = 1) | (|sin(x)| = 1) + π/12 ), max = (|cos(x)| = 1) | (|sin(x)| = 1) + 5π/12 ]. The viable Φ field is expanded, as Obi-Wan has taken advantage of the high ground in so many different environments that he simply uses it more efficiently, and the min/max values apply due to his multidimensional point of view, evidenced by the Trigonometric Perspective Diagram. Additionally, the distance factor does not affect Obi-Wan, as spacetime can be perspectively compressed, giving him the ideal Δ value from his point of reference.
In conclusion, Obi-Wan abuses spatial relativity and Taoist doctrine in order to always invoke his high-ground powers. To properly analyze the strategic genius of Kenobi, one must hold advanced knowledge in Philosophy, Mathematics, and Calculus-based Physics, and be able to integrate these topics together. The impact of research in Obi-Wan's mastery of the high ground ranges from military purposes to spiritual nirvana, although progress moves slowly (but this is actually a benefit, as it gives academia plenty of opportunities to publish studies, thereby giving us the scholastic high ground.) Most importantly, if you find yourself standing on the low ground- don't try it.
Funny long text, but the highground thing makes sense. Maul was arrogant and either forgot about the other saber or was so confident he didn't care. Anakin was arrogant thinking "I'll use the same trick he did when fighting Maul, and I will win".
The entire thing is about underestimating your opponent and thinking "I have the advantage, not him".
In either case, he lost the strategical high ground. No good strategist is that arrogant (BTW genius move by Qui Gon, winning the metaphysical high ground and making the enemy lose the strategical high ground) or forgets about the locations of suspicious pitfalls or enemy weapons
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise.
Depending on which school of thought you adhere to, this could take anywhere between 3 hours or the heath death of the universe
Be aware tho, some people have suspiciously been falling over windows after the thesis statement introduction and we still don't know why, but we are doing our best to investigate
Patton Oswalt Parks and Rec speech sequel just dropped
Can you explain the math of the Millenium Falcon’s Kessel run record next?
The shouldn't have made a sequel trilogy without coming out with a plan
That is the ice-coldest of takes lmao
To tell any other story in the Star Wars universe, you must first retcon the Original Trilogy.
See, the Original Trilogy established that the "dark side" was a temptation for every Jedi. Like cocaine or meth for modern humans: addictive poison that gives a temporary rush of power.
That's great for the whole spiritual, mystic, two-wolves-within-you conflict Luke went through. His victory was overcoming his shortcomings in the form of fear and anger.
But it's actually terrible for any story made afterwards.
On the one hand, you can't now make a story where, "maybe the Jedi were excessively stoic." without also inadvertently making the argument that Luke was maybe... wrong?... to conquer his emotions? It undermines Luke's conflict.
On the other hand, you also can't make the Dark Side totally evil without flattening Vader's character. When Luke loses himself to fear in Episode 5 and to anger in Episode 6, he proves that the Dark Side doesn't sink its teeth into you and control you permanently after a single moment of weakness. Even after losing yourself to the Dark Side, you can still observe how it is hurting your loved ones and then choose to pull yourself out of it, conquering your fear and anger in order to protect them. Exactly as Luke does for Vader, and exactly as Vader does immediately after for Luke.
Which means Anakin was just... one-dimensional up until that point. Weak. Too simple to be a protagonist. He wakes up to find he's killed Padme, and yet still doesn't turn his life around and learn to fight the temptation of the Dark Side? He hunts down and kills Jedi who had nothing to do with his fall, and yet never looks into their eyes to realize he's fallen?
No matter how you look at it, it just... doesn't work.
That's why the prequels retconned the Jedi into something morally ambiguous. And why the sequels retconned them into a past that needed killing. It's why the Clone Wars animated series turned the Jedi into a bureaucratically anti-emotion order. And why a lot of video games added lore where the Jedi actually committed genocide against the Sith. It's also why pretty much none of these other media talk about the Dark Side in the same tone as the OT.
The second the OT ended, the Dark Side could no be longer a "temptation". It had to became a faction. An unjustly vilified piece of humanity. An ethnic group.
Because you can't have a "dark side" and have complicated, nuanced characters and extensive world-building: either A) the world will fall apart, B) the characters will be woefully inconsistent, or C) all of the above.
So every, single time you want to make new Star Wars media, you have to retcon the "Dark Side" essentially out of existence.
The main issue with the Force is that no one ever defined how it and the Dark Side work.
Not that midichlorian bullshit, but an explanation of why the Dark Side is powerful.
There are sort of fan theories as to how it works, but as you pointed out, those are undercut by the lack of consistency.
The original trilogy sort of hints at a workable mechanism.
First is the Light Side. You are borrowing power from the universe to do things. It's not fast, but it is powerful.
Then the Dark Side, you are not asking. You're demanding. You're pulling more power faster than the universe can support. This is why hatred and fear lead to the Dark, because if your emotions are heightened you're less likely to ask.
The Dark Side should also be corrosive to your own body.
Vader's line that he was more machine than man. It should not have been a single injury on a lava planet, but a slow decay as he literally pulled the life out of his own body to fuel his power.
Palpatine should have been slowly decaying. Not one fight with reflected lightning.
But that's the prequel problem. People can't leave shit alone and have to explain every little detail, even if years are meant to go by between the prequel and the original.
My hot take is based on this idea.
The franchise should say to hell with canon and redo the prequels.
Anakin's fall into the dark side should have mirrored Luke's journey. Instead of a maudlin love story causing his fall, he is slowly corrupted by greed and power. Do it well, and it becomes an allegory for modern class struggle and the greed of the few as they gain power. The clone wars are between ordinary people about the legality of cloning as a technology. The Jedi are not generals and there are like 20, not 1,000s. Part way through Anakin's training, Obi-Wan and him leave to enlist as pilots - Obi-Wan offering to continue his teaching in the space Navy against the Jedi's wishes. Every time Anakin wins a battle, he's ashamed of how good it feels to kill. Every time Anakin gets promoted on the space Navy for winning, he is ashamed of the feel of power. Obi-Wan isn't blind to Anakin's slide to darkness, but has too much pride himself to ask for help - failing as a teacher because he can't tattle on his friend.
Ep 2 should be about Anakin coming to grips with his non-jedi like desires and accepting his fate as something not-jedi. Escaping from the Jedi order and running away ashamed and afraid like a fugitive. The Jedi hunting him down across the galaxy. A whole movie about this acceptance, instead of a 1 minute scene in Palp's office. It would be an allegory for the tyranny of the majority, and accepting ones flaws. Ep 2 ends with Anakin finding Sideous stuck in hiding and starting his dark training (a la Yoda in Ep5)
Ep 3 opens to a reluctant Anakin and Palps nearly killing each other while doing dark side training (embracing death and power). They are interrupted by a Jedi on a mission to kill Anakin. The Jedi is killed off by Anakin at great physical cost to Anakin (starting his Darth Vader injuries). Anakin gets mad that the Jedi won't leave him alone and finally commits to being a sith. This starts Anakin's long quest to hunt down each Jedi individually. Each battle with the Jedi injures him further, requiring cybernetic replacements from each painful injury. The hunt consumes him and he is finally Darth Vader.
I've had this bouncing in my head for 25 years.
Star Wars has been constantly retconning itself, from the beginning.
The first film was not really produced as "Episode IV", it was "Star Wars", a standalone film. It was a movie about a farmer orphan who goes on a swashbuckling space adventure with laser swords and space wizards. The good guys are unambiguously good, the bad guys are just bad guys. Everything is pretty much just as it seems, no secretly alive people, no secretly related people. Lucas may have had nebulous plans/hopes for follow ons, but they weren't baked and the overall concept is standalone.
Then ESB came along and retconned the Skywalker family, and produced cliffhangers knowing there'd be a third film. However, I'm pretty certain that "there is another Skywalker" didn't specifically have Leia in mind at the time, mainly because of how it's handled in the follow up.
Then ROTJ came along, and that little tease about 'there is another Skywalker?' just a kind of casual "oh yeah, that's Leia, and she's your sister, and we are going to do absolutely nothing serious with that, just consider the matter closed even though they were clearly setting up for... something with that".
A lot of things in the franchise have this feel. Like "Rei's provenance is mysterious and significant" swinging in the next film to "the parents are nobody, parents don't matter" and then swinging again in the last of that set of three to "just kidding, her provenance is very significant".
There's a massive amount of content created between the OT and the prequels. Most of it was pretty consistent.
Star Wars is just a formulaic fantasy story with a sci-fi coat of paint on it. The original trilogy was groundbreaking because of the special effects, and the story was entertaining enough to not distract from that. The other six films in the main storyline bring nothing new to the table, and are thus boring cashgrabs.
Thank you. I would even argue that Return of the Jedi wasn’t great either. I mean sure, it was beautiful and the Moon of Endor with its giant trees looked amazing, but the plot was mostly a rehash of the original (another Death Star? Really?) plus silly Ewok shenanigans that made the empire into a total joke.
"disney trilogy bad" is a cold take. its not a hot take if every nerd on the planet agrees.
anyways the last jedi is the only good movie in the sequel trilogy. the people who didnt like it would rather watch a correct movie than a good one.
The prequels should have started with the Clone Wars, covering more of Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship, with an occasional flashback to the earlier Anakin to fill in his past. Being a fan from the early years, I didn't like the prequels that much initially, but the story grew on me after watching them a few more times later along with fan commentary over the years. What I do still think they suffer from is making Anakin's fall too sudden, and if we got a better sense of how much he and Obi-Wan were brothers in spirit, the eventual fall would mean more. There would also be more room to develop the friction he observes with the Jedi Council, maybe even take things to a new level in why they don't let him progress. I guess I basically see TPM as a wasted first part to better establish his character.
Watching the animated Clone Wars series makes the gap between 2 and 3 more palatable. You see Anakin grow in the force, but also see the darkness simmering. It also shows the cracks in the Jedi order and lays the groundwork for doubt in their unimpeachable wisdom.
Like, if you just watch the movies, Yoda is basically Muppet Jesus. Anakin seems like a petulant child refusing to eat his vegetables and jumps right to murdering children. If you watch the series, it colors in all the shades of gray.
Luke Skywalker's story is a retelling of Nuada Airgetlám, the first king of the Tuatha de Dannan, in a sci-fi fantasy setting.
Because there is a cultural Zeitgeist about this even if it is not well known, it had a better well of mythology to pull from and therefore it had more impact than the sequels and prequels which were repulled from the saga of Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy.
I think the lack of depth for all of the movies since the original trilogy come from the fact that they do not tap into any other sources than their own source, leaving them all feeling hollow and sterile compared to the original.
Before I begin - lightsabers are an awesome fantasy weapon and I would love to have one.
Lightsabers are a big reason that Star Wars is garbage.
Hardly any lightsaber fights in the OT, used by all of three people (4 if you count Han, which I don't). Once the prequel trilogy was made and special effects were cheaper and easier, lightsabers everywhere, and instead of a lightsaber fight being an old fashioned samurai duel where the story and the fight are enhancing each other, now it's just a spectacle. Has it been more than fifteen minutes since we saw a lightsaber? FSSH, vwoom.
Andor is regarded as one of the better pieces of Star Wars media - no lightsabers, no Jedi, just people versus the machine of the Empire.
Mandalorian S1 was straight fire. Then they introduced the Darksaber. Now nobody likes Mando anymore.
I'm not out to yuck anyone's yum. You can like bad movies, or movies that are big tentpole spectacles but aren't ever going to engage with you mentally. I went and saw Episode IX in theaters opening night and it was as entertaining as Hobbs and Shaw. My brain didn't get anything out of it and it was good to see Palpatine again because he was the only one in the movie that felt like a real person with, you know, motivation and stuff. But I left the theater and I don't really think about it (except for times like now) because it didn't engage with me mentally. There was nothing there.
Just lightsabers.
Endless lightsabers.
I'm not crazy about all the callbacks and remember-mes either (looking at you Rogue One, Boba Fett, Solo, etc), but that's a different rant.
I agree. It also kind of ruins how special and awe-inspiring that lightsaber seemed in the OT. It was like a sacred relic Obi-Wan had taken care of all these years. And then Darth Vader had one! Wow! It also showed his devotion to this "ancient religion" that the generals made fun of him for.
Continuing this take. From a storytelling point of view, they should've made it so that having a lightsaber was extremely difficult, the defining feat of a master Jedi knight. Something that padawans trained to use eventually but was an actually really hard, life threatening even, object to create. Crystals should've been an statistical impossibility, involve a pilgrimage and ceremony, you'd have to be a keen user of the force, train your sensibility to it, master the skill of manipulating life and matter through the force to construct it. Sabers had to be relics, with names, history and mythology. Handed from master to padawan when they became knights through the ages. Further symbolizing the master-apprentice relationship. Thus there can't be any more apprentices than there are masters. Sith would have to kill Jedis and steal them, corrupting the sabers.
But Lucas was a meh world builder anyways, so whatever.
Mine was going to be a step further. Too many Jedi and Sith. If you want to keep the force, sure, but do something new. The Witches of Dathomir are the only real new thing with the force since the first movie. You can count Bendu and the Mortis Gods, but they were very minimal. It seems like only Filoni wants to expand the universe.
Hell, I think Season 1 of Star Wars Visions had every episode about the Jedi/Sith, it wasn’t until season 2 that they started breaking out of it.
The only good thing that came out of the prequels was the pod racing game on the Nintendo 64.
Now THIS is podracing!
There are no hot takes. Everything has been analyzed and discussed a thousand times. Everyone has their own opinion, but none of them are hot anymore.
My hot take is that Darth Vader is actually Luke Skywalker's father Anakin Skywalker. I don't think that Vader killed Anakin. I think that Vader IS Anakin.
You seem insightful about that character so I wanna get your take on this too: do you think the guy playing the role of Vader didn't speak his own lines? Like that's some kind of clue about who he really? idk, maybe I was just high when I saw the movie, but something seemed off
You're in for a wild ride!
The Star Wars universe is not interesting enough for all the TV show and movies being made. George Lucas is not Tolkien and the world building was fine enough for the original trilogy, but it’s simply too boring for more content. Tolkiens work gets more interesting as you learn more about the details. Star Wars is the opposite. The more information you get the less interesting it is.
Also the Jedis are just cops/soldiers. They are not inherently good.
I would say the 60 year period that all the movies occupy are not interesting enough for more content. Similarly to LOTR there are plenty of other time periods in which good content could be made but that makes it harder for Disney to cash in on familiar characters so they don't pursue those options.
That's more or less my take too. The world of the Star Wars universe feels huge and expansive, but in reality by the end of the original trilogy they had basically told all the interesting stories that were to be had about it. And even then, they were starting to run out of material for Return of the Jedi. They tried with the prequels, but as you say it mostly fell flat and ended up boring. The sequels started off more or less rehashing the original trilogy so they were at least entertaining, but that wasn't enough for three movies and it turned into an absolute mess by the end.
The prequels are alright if you look at them as displays for establishing world building rather than "normal" movies.
They could've cut JarJar, though.
The one thing the sequels were missing was Darth Jar Jar.
My hot take, is that star wars pieces of media are only considered "good" if the viewer was too young to perceive the politics in the work when they first saw it. There are exceptions like rogue one/andor, but I think it mostly holds.
They should have had a trilogy story arc planned out before making the new movies made the directors play within that.
How do you know "somehow Palpatine returned" wasn't the plan from the beginning?
Because JJ Abrams never knows how he wants to end anything at the beginning.
For episode 7 it looked like they had a plan and the made a huge turn and all the beats from the first movie just fizzled
I love the idea Kylo Ren. Unhinged man child who worships Vader for all the wrong reasons. His soldiers are afraid of him and work around him and pity him. I love having such a broken villain.
I loved when Rey's parents were nobodies.
I loved that Luke was a scared and broken. Should have felt crippling pity for that guard he force choked in a Jabba's palace. Still. I loved it.
And while I'm at it. Frozen. I wanted so desperately for Hans to be entirely sympathetic and just not in love will Anna. Movie is mostly the same until Anna gets back and needs the kiss to fix her and he tries and.... Nothing. Then. I dunno. Finish the movie some other way.
Bro did a 360 degree Ollie backflip with the Frozen commentary LMAO 🤣
Every discussion about the fall of the Jedi and the Republic proves that Star Wars fans don't know shit about Star Wars.
I'm curious for your reasoning behind this. Is this lack of knowledge outside of the movies/disney meta? Lack of knowledge about the writing behind it? Do you know shit about Star Wars instead? I'm actually curious what you mean because so many fans know so many different fragments of an almost unattainably large lore space that you sound incredibly wrong and right at the same time.
Leaving aside the Euro/Christocentric opinions on the Jedi's spiritual philosophy in regards to their "failure to stop the Sith," anyone that has even a casual understanding of the background should be aware of three things:
1: The Jedi won in the end. How are you going to complain about them not batting a perfect game when they still won?
2: Republic/Jedi history spans millennia. They kept a galactic republic composed of THOUSANDS of species functional while serving as spiritual/political/military leadership. It's all fake history obviously, but in the conceit of the universe one failure doesn't mean jack shit, they're one of the most effective and altruistic organizations in fiction.
3: They don't "kidnap kids" like half the smoothbrains on Reddit say! They're, in fact, so adverse to kidnapping and violence they won't even take a SLAVE CHILD from outside the Republic without consent! It's a major plot point!
It's boring and it sucks
That's not a hot take. Millions will agree with you. Especially Star Wars fans.
I agree it's now boring and sucks.
Empire has never been beaten as a high point in the franchise and it can't be because SW is taken way too seriously now
George Lucas's writing in the OT was atrocious.
That's not really a hot take, but an established fact. Even he admitted that the movie was saved in post production. Everybody has a story with an elaborate line that is an exposition dump and is so robotic it almost doesn't make any sense.
A New Hope would have only been moderately successful at best without the combination of David Prowse doing the physical work and James Earl Jones voicing Vader. Possibly a flop.
Yes, the rest of the cast was solid and it would have still been a good B movie without them, but the voice and physical presence of Vader set the tone of what the protagonists were fighting against. Vader isn't the best character either! In fact he is a one note villain in A New Hope.
The combination of both actors was the secret sauce that set the foundation for the entire series. Heck, Vader overshadowed Palpatine in their scenes together for me, even with Ian McDiarmid's excellent performance.
The first 2 prequels made me realize the only Star Wars movie I really loved was Empire. New Hope and Jedi (apart from the advanced in film making they pioneered) were good, not great.
I still haven't seen episodes 3, 8, or 9 and I feel no desire to ever do so.
Andor is the best thing to come out of the Star Wars franchise and I'm tired of pretending it isn't.
I will always love Andor forever simply because they took aim at the unironic Empire stans and shot them in the rhetorical head.
Episode 8 is my favourite of the sequels, 7 was just boring 9 was, well it exists. The Prequels are not as bad as the many think.
Episode 5 is my favourite over all, but I don't think that's an hot take.
It should have stopped after the OT.
I was so invested in the OT... and no more movies came, so I accepted there wouldn't be more movies.
As such when they came out and were shitty, I didn't mind as much.
That's made it easier for me to dip in and enjoy some of the new content. I'm not expecting it to be good, and can be surprised when it is.
Yeah, but it's kind of like having a park where you used to play as a kid, but then people start dumping garbage there, and trashing the playground, and leaving cigarette-butts and needles in the grass. Maybe you can find a little corner where you can remember how it used to be, but then you see the rest of it.
One was enough
It wasn't very good and then got way worse. We could be forgiven for not knowing better when we were kids but that was 40 years ago.
They shouldn’t have made the prequels. They were terrible and George fucked the legacy of Star Wars forever
I mean, dangling the concept of a moisture farming teen in front of us, and then dropping that entire cinematic arc in favour of some space wizard bullshit? Like, hello? Know your audience?
Hey snot
I find Jedi boring and have always been way more interested in the space fleet battles/logistics/tactics. As a kid I would watch RotJ and fast forward through the ground/throne room scenes just to watch the space battles. I still know exactly where all the scene cuts are.
That's a strange thing to fixate on considering it's absolute nonsense. They work because they look cool as hell but nothing about them makes sense in a logistical way.
Why are the defense batteries manually aimed? Why are capital ships engaging from within visible range? Why do they only do the lightspeed-suicide maneuver one time when it's clearly the perfect weapon in space? Why do they fly like they're moving through air?
Logistics is probably the wrong word, I don’t mean the actual physics of space combat, that never super mattered to me. As a kid that played a lot of X-wing so I probably imprinted some of that onto the movies. That game made it feel like a real space navy with an organization, ranks, squadrons, tactics, etc. that made more sense than the way the movies portrayed it.
I always disliked that the movies didn’t show more of the world-building, they definitely could feel shallow at times, but considering they were based on old Flash Gordon type serials I guess it makes sense.
I suppose the space battles could sort of some sense given the technology in the Star Wars universe.
Your spaceships have two engines/drives. You have the hyperspace engines which are fast but you can't engage in fight in hyperspace (well...mostly), then you have the regular ion engines for use out of hyperspace which are slow as shit. Capital ships can barely get out of their own way, and even the Millennial Falcon isn't terribly quick when not in hyperspace. Now combined with weapons like blasters which have the problem that blaster bolts are also slow as shit. As in considerably slower than bullet fired from a conventional firearm. So if you fire them from a distance from a target, they can see the blaster bolt coming and move out of the way (or jump into hyperspace) long before it gets there. Crappy, slow engines combined with crappy, slow space weapons means capital ship battles might involve the ships having to get close to each other and just slugging it out. That can also sort of explain the small fighters since they can get in really close and hit the ships at basically point-blank range. Though the lack of hit-and-run tactics involving jumping in and out of hyperspace is a bit curious.
The rareness of the hyperspace-suicide maneuver might be rare as the rebels don't have a lot of ships, and if they start plowing them into Empire ships, they'll quickly run of ships and no matter how many Empire ships they take out in a battle, the Empire will always have another Star Destroyer. Though the big problem with introducing the possibility of this sort of maneuver in the later movies is the rebels would have absolutely plowed a ship into the Death Star with completely devastating results in the first movie. And anyone building a Death Star would have been well aware of an attack like that and would have known it would be almost impossible to defend against when you're building a moon-sized target for it.
The EU was the only good thing about it, the movies were always kinda mediocre.
The EU books, games, and comics before the prequel movies was peak Star wars. Thrawn trilogy, young Jedi series, rogue squadron series, bounty hunter short stories, x wing and tie fighter games, old Republic games and comics, dark forces, etc.
My take on Star Wars is that it is about as bad as SciFi can get. It is a Grimm fairy tale from someone who has read Dune without understanding it and the skills to pull it through.
Dune is what Star Wars wanted to be. (I’m talking the movies)
A few times I've seen Dune referred to as Star Wars for Goths. Seems fitting from a strictly superficial standpoint.
the last jedi is a top 3 star wars movie
id put it right above empire, with rots as number 1
Ooo, now this is a nuclear take.
If by nuclear you mean OBJECTIVELY WRONG rabble rabble rabble
I loved everything about the force awakens, but I will never forget the emptiness and depression I felt leaving theater after seeing the last Jedi. I know its from a place of privilege that I can feel this way, but I never had another piece of fiction hurt me so badly. I grew up deep into the EU and games and it was my way to escape the existentialism of my daily life, and I was looking forward to see my fictional hero at as a full power Jedi master on the big screen. Now all I feel is apathy when It comes to start wars.
What does ‘a place of privilege’ mean in this capacity?
I have a PhD in biochemistry, a good job, a wife and a loving family. I have enough free time to contemplate my own place in the world and worry about if my work will have a positive or negative impact on society, because my grandfather who's grandparents were slaves, started a real estate company by house hacking in the 1970s. That allowed my parents and me to live comfortable lives. Having this safety net allowed us to take risks and persue careers that we enjoyed.
I'm old, so I'd say: the Ewoks were jumping the sharks
they shouldn't have made the sequels as they are at all. they should've just adapted the books into movies.
Selling to Disnep was a huge mistake. Putting all the fabulous work of the expanded universe in the back for "creative freedom" and labeling it "fan fiction" basically killed Star Wars for me. Why make movies about Yuuzhan Vong, a novel and incredibly fascinating and creatively written species as the new menace, not detectable by the force, if you can just recycle the old movies?
That's a lukewarm take tbh
I wonder why r2d2 doesn't simply close the stargates with his avatar powers (earth, wind, fire). 🤔
Because that would violate the prime directive.
No air?!
The whole turning off the lightsaber in combat being seen as dishonorable by the sith. The sith lie, cheat, steal, torture, and murder people to get what they want but somehow this is where they draw the line?
Found Ulic's account
For someone who wanted to make Star Wars as "inclusive" as possible, Kathleen Kennedy neglected so many opportunities. For starters, we only ever saw one Star Wars character with any disability, and they used it to portray his villainy. No poly characters, no varying religious communities, heck they didn't even have any relationships between droids and organic life forms despite the Dr. Aphra comics trying to make it clear the Star Wars universe doesn't have our level of standards for what counts as an expected relationship. It's almost as if they weren't trying to be inclusive, just populist.
Luke and Vader are both amputees
Those are injuries though. I mean like an actual medical condition, something like "that character has autism" or "this one has asthma". We only had one character with a medical condition that was something that wasn't an amputee, the guy from Rogue One who takes off his breathing mask to take his last breath right before he was about to die. They portrayed it as a dramatic extension of his villainy. "Diversity" in Star Wars is incredibly disappointing.
Mine is that Star Wars is lame as absolute fuck as an actual lore-heavy universe. There are exceptions (Andor, some games) but overall it's just lame. It was always meant to be a kids focused world and the new movies were just absolute dogshit and seemed like they were made for 5 year olds. The 3 new movies were legitimately some of the most boring and stupid movies that I have ever seen in my life. Also holy fucking shit Boba was so fucking bad. The actual fuck even was that show?
What bothers me the most is the absolute inconsistency for how powerful Jedi and Sith are. Sometimes they seem like Goku from DBZ. Other times they seem weak as shit. It just doesn't make sense.
I find the Dune and Mass Effect universe to be infinitely more interesting than Star Wars.
Edit: ugh the ewoks from episode 6..... completely ruined the mood, just like Jar Jar and baby Yoda. It just pulls you right out of the vibe and slaps tou in the face with the fact that this is for little kids and not for you.
To summarize, Star Wars sucks and is dumb. I also think Harry Potter is lame as shit but that's a hot take for another day..
Star wars is better without jedi or sith as main characters. The universe is far more interesting when it's regular people and the force users are rare or very weak. I liked rogue one so much more than the other movies. Jedi and sith and such are over powered bullshit and should be reserved for the rare deus ex machina. They are boring. Except Obi Wan because I have a huge crush on Ewan McGregor.
I loved A New Hope and thought The Empire Strikes Back was brilliant. I never recovered from the Muppets in the opening act of Return of the Jedi. None of the movies since then have gotten as high on the scale as "good". The series have been a mixed bag, but none of them have had the grandeur of the first two movies.
The Last Jedi, especially if you don't take into account The Rise of Skywalker's sloppy reaction to it, is the best Star Wars movie since ROTJ, and maybe since Empire.
Yes…
…except you clearly forgot about Rogue One.
Oh thanks for reminding me of my hot take: Rogue One is a thoroughly mediocre and boring movie that fails to give any of its characters personality or development. The only reason it has any acclaim is that it's a "dark" plot in an otherwise saccharine franchise, and if the Star Wars set dressing was removed the whole movie would fall over like a potemkin village.
I do think it's better than several of the main movies, but that's not saying much... And I'd probably rather rewatch those trainwrecks because at least they're entertaining.
I did not, though admittedly there's a world where Rian Johnson takes pointers from some of R1's action sequences and TLJ is even more clearly the best SW movie of the last thirty years.
The Last Jedi is kind of like an AI hallucination: any given finger is very realistically rendered, but put together the hand doesn't make sense.
99% of the salt involved with Star Wars comes from taking it way too seriously and treating it as way more important than it actually is.
I might be the only person on the planet who enjoyed watching all 9 films (with Rogue One being add-on favourite)
I enjoyed 7/9 of them (Rise of Skywalker and Phantom Menace commit the only sin that I think is unforgivable in a movie: They are uninteresting)
But that's the thing right.
They're
Enjoyable films
.... And that's it. If one of them sucks, it doesn't change much in the world at large. And even if you're the type of person for whom a bad entry ruins a series, it's not like it's such a massive loss in the case of Star Wars?
Solo wasn't terrible, especially considering how much the sequels leaned into the nostalgia factor. Everyone hates on it because Han isn't as much of a "scoundrel" as they had inagined when he shot Greedo and then fell in love with Leia. But those characterizations are mostly headcanon. I have no trouble watching Solo and Rogue One as the bridge between the prequels and the OT.
Everyone hates on it because Han isn’t as much of a “scoundrel” as they had inagined when he shot Greedo and then fell in love with Leia. But those characterizations are mostly headcanon.
No, the whole point of the original trilogy's framing of Solo was that he was a terrible person who because a better person. Having him be a decent person first undermines the character growth in the same way as the retroactive change to have Greedo shoot is why people don't like that part of Solo.
I don't dislike Solo as a movie, but it didn't serve his initial characterization.
It's mediocre fantasy with star destroyers instead of dragons. Also muppets. So. Many. Muppets.
Rogue One has the best score. It drives the movie like a madman. It's amazing that it's only one NOT done by John Williams. But I think they took what he created and built a masterpiece.
Rogue One and Andor are the only watchable things that have come out in the last few years.
I want to explore the universe that has been created; I am so sick of space wizards and good vs evil
Well.... Skeleton Crew apparently does that so I've heard
Will check out, thanks fellow Lemmy friend
The best stories are revan and bane. The bane books and Kotor 1. Thats my take on it anyway
In hindsight the only good Star Wars movie is TESB.
A New Hope is pretty good.
They should leave a bit more of the technical stuff up to the imagination.
Take ESB. I have no idea how the AT-AT walkers got to Hoth. It makes the reveal of the giant machines more intense. I have no idea how hyperspace works
I don't need the tech behind kyber crystals I like laser swords. I don't need medichlorians, I like mystical space monks.
I think star wars learned the wrong lessons of a decade of hyper realistic film making.
It has some interesting parts, but I prefer hard sci-fi over science fantasy. Just my preference.
If you only like three of the movies, you’re not a fan of the franchise, you’re just a fan of three movies.
I'd flip that around to say people shouldn't seek to be a fan of a "franchise". To be a fan of a franchise in general is to put a big sign on your back saying "I'm a sucker for whatever company owns the rights and I will spend money if you vaguely make it themed along the lines of the franchise".
Three movies and(or) a TV show.
This is kinda where I was going in my reply.
I am not a Star Wars fan. I have a nostalgic fondness for the very first few movies and even then; I haven't watched any of them in ages and don't plan to. A Star Wars label on a piece of media, all things being equal, makes me less likely to interact with it these days.
I never bothered to watch movie 9.
There is no movie 9
I think Acolyte would have been a good show if they had ditched the kung fu gimmick and concentrated more on the writing. I think the overall story was a good idea that got buried under a mountain of marketing crap.
The Obi Wan show should’ve had more seasons and every single finale should’ve been him beating the shit out of Darth Vader every single time.
I'd watch 12 seasons of that.
I'd also watch 12 seasons of OP dudes walking down hallways while they slaughter mooks.
I like the prequels, probably because I grew up with them
I didn't mind Episode 7. It wasn't very original, but it was still entertaining imo. Episode 8 had a good message behind it, and the cinematography was great, but that's about it. Episode 9 had Babu Frik and that's about it.
As for the newer series, I like pretty much all of them, though Obi-Wan and BoBF left something to be desired.
I really enjoyed The Acolyte in spite of its imperfections. I think a second season could have totally given writers a chance to work out some kinks in the story. I also think it would have benefitted greatly from being 10 or more episodes instead of eight.
You asked for hot takes, I've had some unpleasant things said to me for some of these.
Edit: forgot about spinoffs: Rogue One was phenomenal, Solo I didn't like at first but it's grown on me a little bit. Still pissed they never went anywhere on screen with the Maul cameo.
These are all pretty common opinions.
Judging from the replies, people don't like Star Wars, they like space opera as a genre. Wonder what would have happened if George Lucas adapted H.P. Beam's "Space Viking" instead.
Star Wars is a story about toxic masculinity ending up galactically consequential
Ah yes, if only the jedi were more woke and effeminate.
Dude committed several genocides because he had mommy issues and killed the first woman he had sex with because she sided with his adoptive dad on whether being strong or being reasonable was more important and then decided to join the literal fascists. It doesn't get any more masculinity troubles than that.
Yep, that'd probably end up better.
Wasn't that the plot of the Acolyte?
I'm kind of curious about this take. What do you mean?
Jedi took Anakin as a small boy away from his mother and told him "not to worry" about her (a slave on a hostile planet), because apparently experiencing fear is a slippery slope towards becoming an evil mass murderer (warrior of the Dark Side).
Then, when she was killed, he was not allowed to grieve, either.
Then Anakin got visions of Padmé, his wife, dying in childbirth, all while Jedi restricted any marriages to begin with and essentially have cut him out of any counseling, while Yoda doubled down on "ignore your feelings" line.
The entire story of Anakin on the Light Side is the story of everyone neglecting the absolute base emotions he has experienced and trying to raise him as a "tough man" he never was.
Palpatine has seen all of it unfolding, and he knew very well Anakin wasn't an emotionless robot Jedi wanted to make of him, and all it took was exploiting Anakin's raising wave of anxiety over Padmé's fate along with his desperate escape into careerism to switch him to the Dark Side, where he, as Darth Vader, will end up destroying worlds and commanding an authoritarian dystopia.
they shouldn't have made the sequel series without George as a consultant.
That is a lukewarm take at best.
My lukewarm take is that the original Star Wars should have been a one and done movie. Perhaps, a longer movie with some elements from Empire Strikes Back to wrap some storylines, but not more.
I never found the original trilogy to be that great or influential as it is made out to be. In my opinion, it does not fully deserve the level of reverence and importance it receives.
A new hope was only good to the extent that a mediocre remake of a Kurosawa film is still good. Empire was slightly downhill from that (sad ending =/= good movie). Everything after that struggles to remain watchable.
They were simply following the classic trilogy arc:
-
Plucky heroes score on the big baddies against overwhelming odds.
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Baddies hand our heroes their ass on a platter. Hope is all but gone.
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Heroes come back bigger and tougher, win the whole game by the end.
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Most everything wrong with Star Wars happened because of the money grab. We could spend all day talking about the all-star cast ruined by awful writing/direction, wooden acting, and awful, ever-present, ridiculous sfx in 1-3. And of course, Jar-jar. They tried to make every film a “blockbuster” at the expense of the actual film in order to rake the cash in from fans.
The straight up cash grab, more awful writing, and bludgeoned fan service in the recent films. They had potential, but meandered as execs made sure to cram in merchandising opportunities and a veritable commercial or two.
The bright spot was Rogue One, which I thought was a fantastic and dark addition to the universe that explained some of the references made in the films. Andor, too, is pretty decent, leading up to Rogue One.
"Book of Boba Fett" ruined Boba Fett...
Not really a hot take tbh
They should have it directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Should have had them directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Magic has no place in science fiction.
I'd argue it's the other way around: Science has no place in space fantasy. That's why fans were so annoyed by the midichlorian nonsense - it sought to explain the magic through science.
If midichlorians were their connection to the Force and that was it it'd be one thing, where Lucas really fucked up was making it a quantifiable power level thing.
HEs gOt moRe maGiC bActErIa thAN YoDA
I can't comment on "space fantasy" specifically, but I like when fantasy builds complex science and engineering on top of their magic. The magic in something like the Stormlight Archive is compelling in its own right, but it's massively enhanced by seeing how the ancient civilizations leveraged it to build advanced societies, and how they invent new things using the lower level tools over the course of the story.
Remove Kathleen kennedy
The sequels would've fared better if they didn't have underlying tones of trying to appeal to minorities. They should've just been made with the same old flash and flare of the movies and shows before it and nobody would've complained as much. The only reason they've been shit on is because all of them starred a Mary Sue character and people noticed how woke the movies were trying to be.
Oh and Darth Vader is stupidly overrated. There are Sith who I can argue, who can wipe the floor with him.
The Mary Sue isn't a problem (well it is, but not a big one), the issue is with them killing off and shitting on previously established characters. Luke suddenly isn't the chosen one, all he did was kill his dad and a dude that later returns "somehow". Luke, whose entire deal is that he doesn't give up on people and sees good in them even when they are lost to the dark side, gives up on a young teenager. Palpatine claims the Skywalker name. Also the lightsaber battles were crap, the actors didn't learn them as much as the ones in prequels did, they werenn't as elaborate. It is a lot of decisions that ruin the previous movies, basically discrediting the struggle of their characters.
Regarding the lightsaber battles, it makes sense.
Prequels- full Jedi school teaching people how to fight, battles are big & elaborate.
OG trilogy: Vader was a Jedi, but 68% of him is droid parts so not quite as flashy as he used to be. Luke was taught by an actual Jedi, so he knows some stuff but he never went through school to learn things properly.
Sequels: I found a lightsaber & I'm gonna cosplay a Jedi! The only one with any actual training was Kylo, and he got expelled from school before he learned everything.